Medieval and Early Modern Studies

MEMS (Medieval and Early Modern Studies) at Newcastle brings together the university's research expertise in medieval and early modern studies up to c. 1800. We are an interdisciplinary group and our members come from English Literature, History, Archaeology, Music, Modern Languages and Classics. Please look under 'People' and 'Current Projects' for our research interests. Each month we ask a colleague to write a post for our research blog.

We fund conferences and symposia and hold guest lectures by eminent scholars in our disciplines, including the annual Honigmann Shakespeare lecture in honour of the late Professor E. A. J. Honigmann. We support members' research by funding workshops on topics of shared interest and welcome proposals for interdisciplinary workshops in particular. Topics of recent and future workshops include scholarly editing, the emergence of European children's literature in the long eighteenth century and the development of a dictionary of Northumberland place-names. We also fund exploratory workshops aimed at developing new projects. We have a strong collective interest in building up links between the Faculty and regional archives and we particularly welcome and are interested in supporting workshops and talks given by archivists, librarians and curators from cultural institutions across the North-East.

To support UG and PG research and teaching, we have worked in partnership with the Gender Research Group to create and continuously update an Archive Subject Guide that lists by topic some of the rich archival holdings in the region (see the link above). We also aim to record key events we fund and host so please check underneath the 'Events' tab for links or scroll down our 'Recordings' page for clips.

We have a keen interest in promoting the medieval and early modern heritage of the North-East, particularly through music and drama and this year, MEMS-funded public events included an original play which was performed at Newcastle's seventeenth-century Guildhall, the Newcastle Mystery Play performed at the Castle Keep and a concert of Plantagenet music also at the Castle Keep.

The images used as illustrations on this site (all taken from the Robinson Library's Special Collections) and pictures from various performances can be found on our Flickr account.